Hamza Doesn't Treat Video Games Addiction The Right Way

Tell an addict to stop doing the addictive behavior, this person will crave it even more than he did in the first place. You gotta understand that willpower has nothing to do with addiction. You can tell someone how bad is their addiction, how they shouldn't do it, how it's ruining their life, but if they can only rely on willpower, then they will never make it. You gotta understand, willpower comes in a limited amount every day. You don't just have so much willpower you can be like, oh, I don't want to, I'm not gonna use my phone because I'm gonna use willpower. Good. Most people cannot do that, okay? Most people cannot do that, especially when it comes to video games, because the reason why people play video games is much deeper than that, and I'm gonna talk about this. But where I think Hamza is wrong is is the way he explains, or his perception of quitting video games, saying that people should just— I mean, it doesn't say in these words, but people should just stop playing video games because it's one of the worst things and they're just addicted, and you can just level up in real life and you can just, uh, and you can improve your mental health. I mean, it's going to improve your mental health if you quit and everything. And I totally agree. I 100% agree. I always agree with Hamza. Well, almost always agree with Hamza, like 99% of the time. But this is more constructive criticism because I think what Hamza said about video games, saying like, oh, like your mental health is gonna be better, or you're gonna have way more free time, you're gonna be able to read, you're gonna be more successful, you're gonna be like, you're gonna be more jacked in the gym or something. 100% true. I've been someone like Hamza who has been addicted to video games. I was playing like 10 hours a day, like maybe even more, and for like a lot of years. And now I quit it. It's been like 1 or 2 years, I don't know. And yes, it's one of the best things I ever did in my life. But what you gotta understand is most people that quit have something that replaces this behavior and that gives the same reward. What you gotta understand is most people know the behavior is bad, you know, all at Pretty much all people that have an addiction know the behavior is bad, even though some of Hamza fans like say things like, oh, I play video games because I can have, I can practice my social skills and talk with people, my friends, everything. But why don't you do it in real life? You know what I mean? People know that video games is bad, even if they play like an hour a day. They know like an hour of reading is a thousand times better. Or an hour of going outside in nature, it's a thousand times better. Most people got to understand, okay, video games, like the addiction about video games, like I said, you got to replace the addiction, you got to replace the habit, you got to replace the behavior. That's how you can transition from like a good lifestyle— I mean, a bad lifestyle, a trash lifestyle, like playing video games and just doing all the bad habits— to a good lifestyle where you're improving your mental health, you're improving all everything about your life basically, okay? But the thing is, video games, I got so much small sort of like addictive traits. For example, you got the achievement aspect of video games, which is like huge because most people that play video games don't really level up in real life. And so it's a way to sort of have this sense of achievement. I know a lot of people know this, but it's a way to have this sort of sense of, oh, I'm achieving something, you know, I'm getting good at something, I'm making progress. The second thing, the social element. You can literally right now, you can literally go on a video game like Minecraft and play with random people and ask someone if you want, if he wants to talk like one-on-one on Skype, whatever, like things they do nowadays, like if they want to talk and just play together for the whole day, and you just call them a friend. Like, you just got a friendship just like this, and you can talk in real time. You can even put on your camera. You gotta understand, this kind of satisfied the desire for relationship, which a lot of video gamers don't have. Maybe they do. Like, a lot of people say, oh, I go to the gym, I do this and that, but there must be a reason why people play video games and can't stop playing even though they said they're gonna play for 2 hours every day. There must be a reason why, a deeper reason why. Yes, it's that there is the addictive traits, which I'm gonna continue talking about, but there's also the sort of like desire or need that they lack. Like they lack something like relationships or they lack a sense of progress, like I said. The third thing, immersion, immersion, yeah, immersion, okay? Immersion is basically video games is looks like real life. It's tied up to reality, to real life. You know, you, you play in the game and the grass bends at— the grass literally bends as you walk because it kind of like shows that similar to real life. And so people can sort of like have more the sense of progress because it's like this game looks like real life and I'm living up like, you You know what I mean? Like, if, if like the games didn't have so much addictive traits like this, then many people won't play video games at all, bro. If you play games like 20 years ago or something, like when games did not, did not used to be like so advanced and everything, well, you, if you said you were gonna play in 1 hour, you were gonna play 1 hour, bro, 100% sure. Because nowadays, bro, They studied human behavior. They studied human behavior. There's so many little things like going with your mouse and oh, you click on a box and there's new info. That's addicting because it's dopamine. You're seeking out something, you're searching for something, you're getting info. And your brain, the human nature, human nature wants information. So it abuse how your brain works and how basically human nature works. And talking about Hamza, you're 100% right for saying video games is— you should like totally abstain from it. Yeah, I'm right with like, I really think it's true, but like I said, there's so many addictive traits and so many sort of like needs that people lack in their life that they just can't quit. You know, people know that it's bad for them. They know taking drugs or playing video games all day is bad for them. They lose their limited time. They're mindlessly just playing and mouth-breathing like Hamza said. They're just like, like, you know what I mean? Like, they just do things mindlessly and time just goes by so fast and they don't realize like time is like the currency, literally. Like, if you don't have time, like, you're fucked. Like, if you don't have— if you're 70 years old and you want to start a business and you have all these health problems, then you're fucked, bro. Imagine if you just play video games 4 hours a day. No, no, let's say you play video games 6 hours a day for the rest of your life. That's 1/4 of your life, bro. That's maybe 20 years depending on how long you live. 20 to 30 years. I don't think you're gonna live 100 years if you play video games, but that's gonna be like 15 to 20 years of your life like this. 1/4 of your life. You see what I mean? But we gotta satisfy that desire that people lack, that need that people lack. If it's relationship, if it's sense of progress, if it's the desire for revenge because maybe they get bullied at school, or maybe it's the lack of confidence. Like, that's what used to happen to me, the lack of confidence. Because on video games, you can literally be as confident as you want. You can dominate other people. Which is something you don't really do in real life because you lack the confidence. And I'm not trying to insult anyone, but that's what happened to me. But you lack the confidence in real life, so video games is sort of like an escape to where you can be confident. You can easily be confident. But I used to be someone who just trash talks everyone and just dominate everyone in the game and with my mouth because, you know, that's sort of like the— it's sort of like easy to do. You satisfy that need to be dominant and seek for revenge on people like that used to sort of like use me. Hamza saying like trash talking video games, saying like video games is like very bad like for you. Yes, it's bad for your mental health. Yes, yes, it's bad for your success, for like your relationships, for everything. I totally agree. Hamza taught me more than anyone else combined in real life that I know, okay? But I'm not trying to insult, like I said, this is constructive criticism, okay? But I don't think going cold turkey and just stop playing video games because Hamza said it's bad is the right thing, because many people, especially video gamers, don't have much of real life experiences as much as people who just don't have a, let's say, a phone or don't have video games at all, okay? If they don't like real life experiences, they're gonna face things like loneliness because they had relationships on their Xbox, they had relationships online. Like they had people they could talk to and they formed some real friends just online, literally. And they played video games with those friends and it's sort of the sense of you're in a tribe, which a lot of people want. Like a lot of people wanna feel like they're in a tribe, but In video games, it's so easy, bro. You play quests with everyone, you play missions with everyone. It's easy. Instead of going cold turkey, what you do is you have the behavior, you have the need, and you have the reward. Now, okay, you have the behavior, which is playing video games, and you have the need. The need maybe is relationship. You want relationships, you want to, you know, have some friends. And you have the reward, which is satisfying that desire for friendship and having some time with some real-life people, some real humans that you can communicate with in real time. So you see, what you're gonna do is you're gonna keep the reward the same and the need the same, because you can't really change the need, but you're gonna keep the reward the same and you're gonna change the behavior. Simply gonna change your behavior. So what you're gonna do is instead of playing video games, you, for example, can join a sports team, like a basketball team if you like playing basketball. You join a basketball team, you're gonna have the same reward because you're gonna be around people and you're gonna be forming relationships. That's how it's easy like this, bro. You just change the reward— I'm not changeable— change the behavior, keep the reward the same. If you want a sense of progress, one of the easiest things— like, if you play video games because, you know, you get platinum and diamond in the ranks and everything, and you feel good and you feel like you're dominating everyone— start going to the gym. Because you see the sense of progress in video games and it motivates you so much to keep on playing. Go to the gym. Go to the gym and you'll see. Or even at your own, just work out, okay? Just do a workout, go, go, go at the gym. You're gonna start seeing progress on your body, which is gonna be so motivational for you that you're gonna give up playing video games, like, easily. Like, I'm not saying it's gonna be overnight, but you're gonna have more chance of just stopping playing video games because you're gonna realize, okay, I'm— I am getting a sense of progress, which is healthy and which is actually like more satisfying for me because it's in real life and not in something virtual that can literally like doesn't mean anything and that can literally go away in any second. You don't lose your body at any second, but you make progress and you keep that body as long as you work on it. If you lack confidence, you can take courses on social media. You see, you Gotta satisfy the reward. You gotta satisfy the need and keep the reward the same, but just change this addictive behavior for something more healthy that gives the same reward. Okay, that's how simple that is. For example, me, like, I used to be like this guy that was like quote-unquote weak because like other people will think like, and I will think that I was weak, and I was so— I was not confident. I thought I was unattractive. I couldn't talk to anyone. I couldn't talk to girls. I couldn't talk to anyone, okay? I didn't have confidence. So when you play video games, you satisfy that need. I satisfied that need for dominance because, you know, I thought I was weak in real life. I satisfied that need to be confident because, well, you're literally behind a screen and no one can see you, and you're just playing with your controller, and you can trash talk as much as you want. No one's gonna say anything, no one's gonna be physical with you. You can do anything. You can literally— I literally trash talk, insulting anyone. And you know, I like literally can do— I did things that I will never do in real life. Like literally insulting people like this, I will never do in real life, but I could on video games because, you know, it's easy. So it satisfied my need to be confident and to get sort of like revenge and also like to be dominant because Once you're good at a video game, bro, and you're behind a screen, now there's no camera, no one can see you. Well, like, once you're good at the video game, you're gonna trash talk as much as you want. You're gonna feel like a god on video games, but in real life, it's the total opposite. That's always how it happens. So what I did is I started changing my lifestyle. I started, you know, going into self-improvement. That was like 2 years ago. I started going on self-improvement. I didn't like said I was just gonna stop video games. I knew it was bad, and yes, it helped to see videos like saying, oh, video games tricks your brain into, to like fuck up with your brain and everything. But I did not like really just quit just because of that. Instead, what I did is I started the new habits. I started working out, I started taking cold showers, I started eating healthy, and these habits show me like a sense of progress in my confidence, in how I was perceiving myself, how like everything changed. Like everything changed. It felt like, okay, real life is my new video game basically. Real life is gonna be the video game that I'm gonna abuse and pretty much, not abuse, but pretty much make a lot of progress like I did in all the video games I played. This is what real life is now to me. I can now make as much progress as I want. As if I was in the video game. So when I started seeing, okay, I'm eating healthy now, I'm making progress in eating more healthy, I'm making progress in the gym, uh, not in the gym but working out, and now I can do— at the beginning I only could do like 5 push-ups or 10 push-ups, I don't know. Now I could do 30 push-ups. Now I started seeing the progress. I thought I was getting stronger and stronger, so that gave me a self-image of someone who was strong, and now I'm more confident. To do anything, to talk to anyone, anything, because I've worked on myself. Like, now I have more life experiences because I'm spending more time outside, you know, I'm doing all those things. I'm making a lot of progress, so I'm satisfying that need for progress. And I did that kind of unconsciously. I didn't know that, like, you had to replace the behavior or the habit with something that gives the same reward but is not the same habit. But that's how I did it unconsciously. I think Hamza did too. So it came to the point where I was playing less and less and less video games because every time I play, like, I kind of regret because you lose all your motivation to do anything after you play video games. So I started like kind of regretting, you know, but I wasn't really using any willpower to stop playing video games. I was just focused on what I had to do. I was not like, oh, I'm focused on this so I don't play video games. I was just doing my things. I was just going outside, taking the sun, reading books, eating healthy, playing basketball, working out. I was just doing those things, taking cold showers. So I didn't really, really like think of video games as somewhere where I should like go. Like it's not, it wasn't like really attractive anymore. It didn't feel attractive anymore. And I didn't use willpower or discipline to be like, oh, video games is trash and I shouldn't play video games. And every time that the urge was in front of me. Like, I didn't do that because I replaced the behavior with something that gives the same reward. And we're gonna see that a lot of times. So to decrease even more the temptation to play video games, I simply sold my Xbox. I sold my Xbox because I was like, bro, I was playing like once a month. So every time I play, I'll regret, like I said, because you lose motivation, you lose time. And now you don't feel like doing anything. But so I just sold it. Now I don't have the temptation, except if, let's say, like sometimes, sometimes if, for example, in my brain, because it's like I want to play because I remember like all the relationships and all, like we used to play like quests and things like this. And I used to remember that, like moments where like I don't like hang around with the same people. But you, you also gotta remove the temptation, bro. Like, you gotta remove the temptation. If it's just using like an internet blocker, just putting like your Xbox downstairs and not where you're always at, that can be like very, very good for you. Because, well, if you— if literally, bro, your video— your Xbox is in your room where you literally sleep, Like, you're gonna go to sleep and then you're gonna think about video games, literally. And so that increases your chance of playing video games. You got to remove the temptations. Well, this is where, like, I have, like, constructive criticism from Hamza. Instead, you got to treat the, the root of the problem. It's like pretty much medicine. You cure the root of the problem, not the symptoms. So What is the cure? What is the root of the problem? Like I said, maybe the lack of relationships, maybe it's your parents, they don't give you love, maybe it's anything. You gotta journal on this because most of the time you're trying to, an addiction stems from trying to feel better or trying to avoid feeling bad. You know, trying to avoid the bad feelings like anxiety, stress, maybe loneliness. Boredom. You're trying to avoid those things. That's why you play video games, or that's why you go on your phone and go on social media for many hours. You know for a fact, like Hamza said, you don't— you know that people that binge eat don't binge eat because they like eating. Neither do people that play video games 10 hours a day only play video games because they like the game. I'm not I'm 100% sure that people that binge eat don't have a passion for food or something. They don't have a job about food or something. Neither does people that play video games. Yes, they might like playing video games, but one of the quote I saw yesterday, I think, was, "Don't mistake happiness for the pleasure of the mind." Okay? Don't mistake happiness for the pleasure of the mind. Because a lot of people think, You know, junk food is going to bring me joy, or video games can bring me joy, or watching movies is going to bring me joy. Well, that's your mind. That's literally dopamine. That's it. Yes, it can literally make you feel good, but that's literally just some dopamine you're getting from a man-made activity. If we're going back like 100 years ago, what are you going to do for fun? You're not going to watch a movie, you're not going to play video games. You're literally gonna be creative and do something for fun with nature. You're maybe gonna go on a walk, for a walk, before you cut out video games. Like, this is where Hamza, I think, is wrong. Before you cut out video games like many people, you know, try to do, going cold turkey like they say, instead you want to know what you want to achieve and what you want to avoid, okay? These are two of the most motivation things you can think about because most people do things either because they wanna avoid something or because they want something. So maybe what you wanna achieve is you wanna do a business and you know video games kind of blocks you from making that business because it kills your attention, it kills your motivation, it kills your focus, it kills your time. So yes, you wanna make your business, but Okay, like that's a good, that's a good desire, but you got to make it more deep. You got to think more deep about this. Okay, making business so I can have money and be like, I have autonomy. Okay, that's good, but it's like, that's not motivating enough. Oh, maybe making a business so I have enough money to retire my parents, like pretty much Hamza said. So literally, to retire your parents Now that's motivating because you see maybe like the pain that your parents go through. Now that's motivating, like that's so motivating. You gotta find a reason why you want to play or want to stop playing video games. It gotta be a strong reason why. It can't be just, oh, because I don't want to lose my limited time. But yes, that's a good reason, but most people won't quit just because of this. You won't quit just because junk food is bad. You won't quit just because 'You might get cancer from junk food,' because everyone knows you can get cancer from junk food, but they continue on eating it. No, you go like, 'I don't eat junk food because I want my kids to be healthy, and I want to lead a sort of like generation of people that are healthy, and they teach how to eat healthy, and you know, they be sort of like role models in terms of,' you know, you know what I mean? Like, you gotta think deep like this. You can't That's how it motivates me to never eat anything. Like, I don't even have the desire to eat junk food or eat anything that's bad for me. I can literally go on and eat everything that's healthy for the rest of my life because I have a strong reason why. I want to be a role model for health. I want to teach people how to be healthy. I want to prove to people that even though you're getting older, that doesn't mean you're gonna— that your body is decreasing its ability to move and everything. I want to prove those things. That's why I eat healthy 24/7, and now I don't even have the desire to not eat healthy. You do the same with video games. Maybe like most people, they don't want to end up regretting something. That's a good reason why. But you know, maybe you don't want to feel weak because— and regretting something because you play video games, and because of that you couldn't bring money to your family, and now your family is struggling and you haven't started your business yet because you were still playing video games. You gotta think deep like this. You wanna avoid that feeling of feeling weak like you felt all your life because you played video games. You wanna avoid that feeling of not being able to do anything, not being able to have focus or attention on a business that could literally change your life just because you played video games. Bro, journal about these things, okay? You know, you wanna bring consciousness to this thing, not abstination, but consciousness. You wanna be conscious. Yes, abstaining like is maybe the end result you want, but consciousness will bring, will be a byproduct. Not consciousness, but abstination or stopping playing video games is gonna be a byproduct of consciousness. When you realize why you do that thing, why do you indulge in that thing, what is the need behind it, why, why do you want to quit. This video, bro, shout out to you, Hamza. Like, I have no hate towards you, but literally shout out to your video saying make a video criticizing me. Now this is just constructive criticism. I really actually hope it helped you to sort of like see it this way and, you know, maybe give that different message to like your big audience that literally can change so many people's lives. Because I think if you give a message like this, like saying, okay, keep the, the, the behavior, keep the reward the same and change your behavior. If you can literally give that same sort of like advice, I think like literally you can change, you can make people stop playing video games. I'm not saying like be manipulative or something, but I think it can be a great advice. So bro, shout out to you, and that's it, bro.